Warm weather and Other things
Sep. 28th, 2020 21:06![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
torquillI was very happy to see a little face peering at me from the hedge this morning.
Last night it occurred to me that I hadn't seen Other in some time. As I was climbing into bed I realized I hadn't heard him singing in close to a month. Yet someone was eating the cat food on the front porch, cleaning the bowl once and even twice a day. With a sinking feeling, I thought, what if we're feeding a coyote now, rather than the cat?
Coyotes do roam near here, and while Other is a quick and wary cat, coyotes get even the quick ones sometimes. I decided to scatter flour around the food bowl and see what tracks I got. By the time I went to let out the chickens (Jenny was busy writing a letter to mail when we headed to town this morning) the only tracks were those from the jay. But as I emerged from the garage, looking around for Only, there was this little round tabby face staring at me on the edge of the driveway.
When we were down the hill, I picked up a voice mail message from the Feral Cat Coalition, asking me whether I'd like an appointment Thursday, Friday, or Saturday. Reassured that we still *had* a cat, I asked for Thursday, but I got Friday. Such is life. It'll give me one more day to get him used to the trap, at any rate; I set it up this afternoon, open at both ends, with an afghan over the top. Hopefully he'll venture into the end to eat his usual kibble late tonight, and I'll move the bowl a little further in tomorrow. Thursday I'm supposed to trap him, and keep him overnight in a sheltered location (the Annex seems logical). Friday morning I need to be in Portland to drop him off at 7:30 am (cough), and stick around until about 4 to pick him up. So it'll be a full day trip to Portland, with roll-out at about 6 in the morning...
In the meantime, the weather has turned warm and sunny, the grapes are sweetening up quickly, and I got the first coat of primer on the door. The beavers still haven't done any repairs; I think they've moved on. I caught the pack rat I'd nicknamed Houdini, for escaping the trap twice -- he was a full adult, with a big blocky head, and he'd obviously been around long enough to be clever at evading the trap door. But when I checked after dinner, there he was, and I took him down the hill as the last light faded from the sky. The deer were out in force, something about the full moon.
I can understand that some people are concerned about fire risk for the coming week, but we're certainly damp enough up here for now, and we needed this last warm spell for the grapes and a few last minute projects, like painting. I want to get a little more plywood and lay it over the Shippen porch, where the current covering is thin enough to flex alarmingly... Jenny pointed out that if I'm going to lay tar paper (actually sheet asphalt roofing) over the new plywood, I need to do it in warm weather, otherwise it turns hard as rock. So that should go on my list. Maybe digging post holes as well, so that I can get the cement bags out of the garage before they start to set up...
It seems like I'm always adding to my list (I have laundry on it for this week too, taking advantage of the dry warm sun) but I took several things off of it today, so I shouldn't get too discouraged.
Last night it occurred to me that I hadn't seen Other in some time. As I was climbing into bed I realized I hadn't heard him singing in close to a month. Yet someone was eating the cat food on the front porch, cleaning the bowl once and even twice a day. With a sinking feeling, I thought, what if we're feeding a coyote now, rather than the cat?
Coyotes do roam near here, and while Other is a quick and wary cat, coyotes get even the quick ones sometimes. I decided to scatter flour around the food bowl and see what tracks I got. By the time I went to let out the chickens (Jenny was busy writing a letter to mail when we headed to town this morning) the only tracks were those from the jay. But as I emerged from the garage, looking around for Only, there was this little round tabby face staring at me on the edge of the driveway.
When we were down the hill, I picked up a voice mail message from the Feral Cat Coalition, asking me whether I'd like an appointment Thursday, Friday, or Saturday. Reassured that we still *had* a cat, I asked for Thursday, but I got Friday. Such is life. It'll give me one more day to get him used to the trap, at any rate; I set it up this afternoon, open at both ends, with an afghan over the top. Hopefully he'll venture into the end to eat his usual kibble late tonight, and I'll move the bowl a little further in tomorrow. Thursday I'm supposed to trap him, and keep him overnight in a sheltered location (the Annex seems logical). Friday morning I need to be in Portland to drop him off at 7:30 am (cough), and stick around until about 4 to pick him up. So it'll be a full day trip to Portland, with roll-out at about 6 in the morning...
In the meantime, the weather has turned warm and sunny, the grapes are sweetening up quickly, and I got the first coat of primer on the door. The beavers still haven't done any repairs; I think they've moved on. I caught the pack rat I'd nicknamed Houdini, for escaping the trap twice -- he was a full adult, with a big blocky head, and he'd obviously been around long enough to be clever at evading the trap door. But when I checked after dinner, there he was, and I took him down the hill as the last light faded from the sky. The deer were out in force, something about the full moon.
I can understand that some people are concerned about fire risk for the coming week, but we're certainly damp enough up here for now, and we needed this last warm spell for the grapes and a few last minute projects, like painting. I want to get a little more plywood and lay it over the Shippen porch, where the current covering is thin enough to flex alarmingly... Jenny pointed out that if I'm going to lay tar paper (actually sheet asphalt roofing) over the new plywood, I need to do it in warm weather, otherwise it turns hard as rock. So that should go on my list. Maybe digging post holes as well, so that I can get the cement bags out of the garage before they start to set up...
It seems like I'm always adding to my list (I have laundry on it for this week too, taking advantage of the dry warm sun) but I took several things off of it today, so I shouldn't get too discouraged.